Introduction
Success in schools can only be brought about by change. In 1991, Michael Fullan gave assumptions about change that are in line with Guskey’s guidelines of promoting change in 1994. To add to this work, there is the teacher’s view which describes school innovations in seven stages. The chaos theory, which is a combination of many disciplines, explores the hidden order in the chaotic systems and studies the emergence of self-organization in the chaotic systems. So far, the chaos in schools has been portrayed as linear systems whereas they are non-linear hence making the school improvement efforts futile.
Process of Change
Change then depends on the integration of the ideas of the supervisor with the ideas of the school community. The complexity of schools means that the process of change must be generated from the school community itself with the agenda of reasons for change, achievements required, the process of change, and how to measure the achievement. To know the effect of the change, the teachers should observe the students clearly and both parties should use direct feedback. The influx of new knowledge now and then brings instability into the system and will take some time before it is fully incorporated. Since culture resists change, a positive culture must be cultivated in schools to accept change and this includes appreciation and recognition, involvement in decision-making, honesty, and confidence, among others. Change in conditions of teaching is of paramount importance in bringing change in education.
To define success then, every school should study its achievements as compared to the goals
The measure of success or failure in implementing change in schools is how well students perform in exams. The condition of the American schools is top notch and the main aim of education is to bring democracy and leadership to the students. To increase the level of democracy, students should be given a chance to participate in humanitarian affairs and democratic decision-making. The good and moral principles then will include compassion for the well-being of colleagues and students, wholeness in the aspects that the student is exposed to, connectedness between classwork and real-life, and inclusion of students in the principles of equality and equity to make them responsible adults later in life. The other principles are justice, peace, empowerment, community, freedom, and trust. Following all these principles is not an assurance of success in schools and therefore schools should set priorities that will help the students to reach the optimal human potential. The No Child Left Behind Act was put in place to ensure that schools are responsible for their student’s excellence and eliminate the gaps among schools. To deal with this act, short and long-term strategies are put in place. The short-term strategies include developing a curriculum, eliminating non-tested subjects, striving for authentic instruction, limiting test-taking practice, and providing professional development. In the short term, the low-income schools can provide incentives to maintain the quality of teachers, develop partnerships with community members and focus on analyzing and improving the schools’ performance. The long-term strategies to support this Act include the inclusion of other measures of excellence other than the use of high-stake tests achievements alone and the use of higher learning as a measure of achievement.
Conclusion
Measuring the achievement of any school in impacting the students positively will depend on the resources that a school has and the background of the children who are in the schools. The way children are brought up impacts largely on the attitude they have later in life.